New refrigerator

I have it narrowed down to three, all stainless, Samsung, all four-door French door. None are counter-depth because I don't want to give up space.

25.5 cubic feet (about the size we have now)

28.5 cubic feet

30.5 cubic feet

And yeah, I want to go for the largest one I can. I am so tired of not having enough room in the fridge, especially when we're doing dinners and picnics and holiday stuff. (The last big family picnic we had, my MIL had stuff in her fridge, my sister had stuff in her fridge, and my fridge was loaded to the gills.) There's just no room. According to Consumer Reports, those footages aren't accurate anyway; the 30.5 cubic feet is actually about 28 or 29, so the measurements aren't exactly correct. Depending on the fridge, some of them are inflated quite a bit (whatever happened to truth in advertising anyway?). 

We talked to our nephew about installing the new water line for water and ice and he can do that even before the new fridge is delivered, so that's taken care of. I didn't really want a water line / ice maker; I think it's something else that can go bad. But try finding one without it these days. And Rick wants it, so we're getting one. We do tend to go through a lot of ice as I bring it to work every day and we put it in the cats' water dish....they like to play with the ice in the water. And Tabby likes to bat an ice cube around the kitchen floor sometimes. I let her go; when she's done playing, I just wash the floor.

My brother works at Lowes and can get us a discount, so we'll just give him the money and he'll take care of it for us. Then he and Rick will take the truck down and pick up whatever fridge I decide on, bring it home and get it working.

We were going to put the old fridge in the basement, again, for when I need extra room. But we bought this one back in the mid-90s and, while it still works OK, it's not as energy-efficient as the new ones are. Our local electric company will come and pick it up and give us $35 to boot. Good deal!

(Still have not found a kitchen backsplash that really "calls" to me. I will. There's something out there. All in good time.)

I have this feeling that fridge capacity needs can never actually be met, no matter how big the fridge!

I do a lot of vegetable and fruit juicing and buy on special (organic).  I never have enough room. 

So I'm right with you on the 'go for the biggest' idea.

Pam you will love the ice maker and water faucet.  I never had one till I moved here into this new mobile home.  It's a GE, everything here is a GE.  I find myself using the ice a  lot more often now, putting it in my drinks and yes, I too put a couple of cubes in Autumn's water dish to keep it cold.  It's so  much easier than having to take out a ice container and getting those cubes out.  You'll  just  love it.

You may like that water dispenser and ice maker!  I've never been a water drinker; but I do like it a lot more now that we have the one right on the refigerator.  The only problem we've had is that Noodles gets all worked up over the sound of the water she pulled the line out and bit into it.  Crazy cat!  We just used some duct tape to make it out of her reach and she leaves it alone now.  She still looks sometimes when she hears the ice maker refilling; but she doesn't lay there waiting around.    Changing the filter is a down side (buying them); but we used to have one of those ones that attach to your faucet at our old place and I still didn't drink water much.  DH drinks a lot though; so we get our money's worth out of them! 

Just make sure you'll be able to fit it through your doors! I had one all picked out when my husband suddenly wondered whether it would fit through the kitchen doorway (we'd already measured the front door). We went home and measured, and it wouldn't, even if it were carried horizontally and tilted. We ended up getting a taller, narrower one.

Winchester, I would urge you to do good research online before making a final decision.  French door refrigerators are notorious for having issues with the waterlines/ice makers, etc.  I'm not telling you this to discourage you, but because I've been down the road already and am sort of in the business in an off-hand way (I work in architecture).

I purchased a Kitchenaid Architect Series French door for my new home around 4 years ago.  The first few months it sat in my living room lol.  When finally connected, I was really happy with it - for about the first year.  After that, it started having constant problems with were associated mainly with the defrosting cycle and water in the door mechanisms.  The thing is, these type of fridges are not designed very well on the whole although they look fantastic.  It got to a point where the darn thing was flooding my kitchen nearly daily.  After numerous service calls, repairs, etc. Kitchenaid finally admitted there was a problem with that model and, offered me another one - without the water in the door, which they said would solve everything.  It did still have an auto-ice maker in the freezer.

Had that one for about a year and the same exact thing started to happen.  Water flowing from the freezer door nearly every day.  It's the defroster not working correctly - ice accumulates on the freezer floor and then starts to melt and there is nowhere for it to go but, down and out.  They would say to us (in both instances) it needed defrosting, but to do this yourself you pretty much have to take apart the entire back of the refrigerator and then remember how to put it back together again.  That, was for the fast method using a hot blow dryer.  Let alone, if you can even move the darn thing yourself!  I can't imagine if I was living alone, I'd never be able to pull it out.  To do it slowly, you have to unplug the entire unit - and let it come to room temperature and hope it defrosts.  Let me tell you, cats and puddles do not mix  So, for the time we had service on it, the warranty pretty much covered the calls but after a while, we couldn't have them come out anymore.

Anyway - I don't even have a warranty anymore on this because, when they gave me the new fridge, they just used the old warranty and didn't extend a new one, for the new unit.  Like, wth?  So now, here I am again, with a $2K+ value refrigerator leaking all over my floor all the time.  Thankfully - we also have a smaller unit in the basement for overflow foods, but still, how often can you defrost the thing?  It just shouldn't get that blocked up that fast, that much.

I finally broke down the other week and paid for an extended warranty from Kitchenaid myself but they won't even look at it for 2 months into that payment.  Ugh.  So not pleased.  

Anyway - this isn't to say ALL french doors have this problem, but a lot of them do.  Read up on whatever model you're considering and just keep in mind that stuff happens.  They really do not make appliances like they used to, the way our old ones would last 10-20 years.  Everything breaks far too fast and costs way too much now.  
 

Oh and I'm with you on backsplashes.  Been living in this house now for several years and just can not find anything I love for the life of me - and like I said, I work in the business and you'd think I could have by now

Hope you can find the perfect one for your new kitchen. I agree with the member who said do your homework before buying. Personally I would love to have a fridge with the freezer on the bottom. I could care less about the ice/water in the door feature. As long as my icemaker works, I am okay. As for the back splash in the kitchen, this is what we did. I also did this in our old house when we remodeled the kitchen there. I picked a color laminate like would be used for a counter top that was as near my paint color as possible. It was put on the wall all the way around the cabinets. I have a galley shaped kitchen so it is around all three walls. I can easily wipe it all the way up to the cabinet bottoms and behind the cooking area of the stove. Sure it is not a decorative thing that catches the eye, but it is very serviceable and my walls always look great. I wanted to spruce it up a little so I used a rooster wall paper border at the bottom. There is an oak strip that is on top of the counter top all the way around and the wall paper border sits on top of that, stuck to the laminate backsplash.

I hope you get a refrigerator you love, Pam.

Our refrigerator is old and I expect it to start failing at any time. I'm not sure what year it was bought, but the previous owners left us all the documents so it would be easy enough to find out. I would also be getting a stainless steel one to match the new oven and new dishwasher we bought since we moved here. Aaron hates the refrigerator and is just willing it to die. :lol3: It has very little freezer room, but I have a huge freezer in the garage. We have a smaller refrigerator in the garage that Aaron bought for his beer brewing, but I take it over when I do a lot of cooking for a get together. :lol3:

Thank you so much for your input....I really appreciate your thoughts.

Years ago (about 30 years ago), the house we were renting while building our house had an ice maker and water line for the fridge. And it malfunctioned so many times, I wanted to throw that thing out the window. Because when it messed-up, the freezer would defrost. We lost quite a bit of food in those episodes, too, until I got smart and stopped using the freezer to the fridge. I kept everything in the freezer in the basement. The water line would malfunction; we'd get it repaired and then two months later, it would malfunction again. Very frustrating. And since it came with the house we were renting, we couldn't put another fridge in there; I had asked the landlord if we could store his fridge in the garage and bring in a new one. He said, "Of course! But you need to realize that when you leave, the new fridge stays." WTHeck??  The whole thing left a bad taste for me and I've hated them ever since. I know, it'd be great not to have to deal with buying ice and having it easier to grab a glass of water (the cats would still drink bottled water anyway; that's what they're used to and I wouldn't change them now). 

As for the French door fridges, yes, we've been doing a lot of homework. And while many of them do have issues (particularly LGs, from what I've been reading), the Samsung rates quite well. That's why we'd go with that.

As for getting it into the kitchen, we have double French doors in the kitchen and both doors can open, not just one of them. That gives us an opening of a little over six feet. Plenty of room to bring a fridge in!   And if Rick and I were able to get those darn kitchen cabinets up onto the deck, I'm sure the delivery people (or Rick, my brother, and BIL, as the case may be) should be able to get a fridge up over, too. My BIL has a large appliance dolly, so that will help.

I'm not really worried about freezer space because of the freezers in the basement. I am worried about fridge space, though.

And I am worried about the water line stuff. 

Your kitchen sounds so pretty, blueyedgirl5946; it really does. I'm just not ready for a backsplash yet. I keep looking, but not excited over much of anything yet.